Joyce Carol Oates is an American novelist, short-story writer, essayist, and poet whose work has received both critical and popular acclaim in her 50-year career. She often writes of hardships and violence in American towns, with strong depictions of working class families. Born in Lockport, New York, Oates attended grade school in a one-room schoolhouse. Growing up, she had a strong interest in books and writing and at the age of 19, Oates won a short story contest sponsored by Mademoiselle. She earned her BA in English from Syracuse University where she graduated as valedictorian, followed by an MA in English from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Following graduate school, Oates taught English at the University of Detroit, where she witnessed the social turmoil engulfing America’s cities in the 1960s - observations which would influence her early writing, including her first novel, “With Shuddering Fall” (1964), published when she was just 28. This was followed by her short story collection, "Upon the Sweeping Flood" (1965) and she has written prolifically since then, averaging approximately two books per year. Oates is the author of over 70 books, including the novels "them" (1969), winner of the National Book Award; "Bellefleur" (1980); "You Must Remember This" (1987); "Because It Is Bitter, and Because It Is My Heart"(1990); "We Were the Mulvaneys" (1996); "Blonde" (2000), winner of the National Book Award; "The Gravedigger’s Daughter" (2007); "The Accursed" (2013); "The Book of American Martyrs" (2017); and "Night. Sleep. Death. The Stars." (2020). Her poetry, essays, and short stories have appeared in national newspapers, magazines, and journals and have been widely anthologized. Her work has earned numerous accolades, with many citing a lifetime of literary achievement. Oates is the recipient of the O. Henry Award, the National Humanities Medal, the Pivano Award, the Norman Mailer Prize for Lifetime Achievement, the Peggy V. Helmerich Distinguished Author Award, the PEN/Malamud Award, the Rae Award for the Short Story, the Stone Award for Lifetime Literary Achievement, and the 2019 Jerusalem Prize. Regarding writing, Oates offers this advice: 1. Write your heart out. 2. The first sentence can be written only after the last sentence has been written. FIRST DRAFTS ARE HELL. FINAL DRAFTS, PARADISE. 3. You are writing for your contemporaries not for Posterity. If you are lucky, your contemporaries will become Posterity. 4. Keep in mind Oscar Wilde: A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal. 5. When in doubt how to end a chapter, bring in a man with a gun. (This is Raymond Chandler's advice, not mine. I would not try this.) 6. Unless you are experimenting with form gnarled, snarled, & obscure be alert for possibilities of paragraphing. 7. Be your own editor/critic. Sympathetic but merciless! 8. Don't try to anticipate an ideal reader or any reader. He/she might exist but is reading someone else. 9. Read, observe, listen intensely! as if your life depended upon it. 10. Write your heart out. (Originally posted via Joyce Carol Oates on Twitter/X.)

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